Enter Offstage

Cultural Immersion: Language Practice as Performative Activism

2025-12-19T15:07:00.006-10:00

by Eleanor Liʻulā Svaton

I chose to write a monologue for my Theatre 617 PaR performance as a way to explore the concept of performance of self. By exploring the trajectory of life events that shape who I am continually evolving to be, I hoped to use performance to possibly influence this path I am on in life, based on the idea that performance is a powerful force to shape reality and how we perceive the world and people around us—my reality, but also those who experience the performance—the audience. I created a rhetorical situation between all of us in the theatre to affect the entire culture and connections of those in attendance.

My education as an outsider welcomed into the rituals of Korean and Hawaiian culture, someone not raised and reared in the tradition of these rituals, offers unique experience, worthy of consideration. I find cultural immersion to be an appropriate way to show respect to my host culture by giving my full attention to understanding and participating. It’s walking the walk—performing in order to be accepted, admitted as a practitioner rather than as an observer or spectator, but you won’t be accepted if you can’t perform well or aren’t trying to earnestly. Only through cultural immersion, through practice, can someone understand “ritual,” the enactment of a culture’s most codified social activities.

How someone chooses to take the knowledge gained through cultural immersion and put it to use is absolutely open to criticism. To immerse in a culture is to gain the trust of the culture’s practitioners. The attempt to then represent a host culture for an outside audience becomes a rhetorical situation, and the ethics of the performers' representation, whether written or embodied, should certainly be taken into consideration when studying this situation.

With this in mind, I crafted my performance monologue, “ʻO Liʻulā Koʻu Inoa,” which is Hawaiian for “My name is Liʻulā.” I chose to write about my life, starting with my parents and my hometown, where I am from, origin. I was inspired to do this by my Hawaiian language professor from the previous two semesters, Kumu Kekeha Solis. He wrote a moʻolelo in the beginning of his dissertation that also began with genealogy, which is very important in Hawaiian culture.

ʻŌ Liʻulā Koʻu Inoa

“Welina Mānoa” na Tracie a me Keawe Lopes

Aloha mai kākou.

ʻŌ Liʻulā koʻu inoa. Akā, ʻo Eleanor koʻu inoa nō hoʻi. No Makekukeka mai au. No Holyoke.

I ka wā kahiko, i ka makahiki ʻumi kūmāiwa kanawalu kūmākahi, ua hānau ʻia ke kaikamahine o Holyoke, ma ka lā mua o Kepakemapa.

ʻO Holyoke, kahi i noho paʻa ai nā poʻe no Ireland ma ka ʻāina o ka lāhui Algonguin, ma laila, ua hānau ʻia ka makuakāne o ke kaikamahine, ʻo Leonard kona inoa, i ka makahiki 1951.

A ua hānau ʻia nō hoʻi ka makuahine ma laila, i ka makahiki 1956. ʻO Kathryn kona inoa.

Leonard and Kathryn. My parents. Lenny Jacobson and Kathy Stone. Jacobson is my maiden name. Jake the Jew, they called my dad, when he was growing up. Even now, he’s referred to by this moniker by those from Holyoke who still remember him fondly. Jake the Jew. Neither wholly shunned nor fully accepted by the predominantly Irish descendants of his home town. But he was only half Jewish, born out of wedlock, mixed, and given up for adoption.

I wonder about his birth mother. If she held him before letting him go. If she wanted to keep him. How old she was when she got pregnant. If she had a fulfilling life and if she outlived his adoptive mother, whom I never knew. I wonder if she would have been the one person in the world who would have recognized me from a young age as kindred. My paternal grandmother.

I was nineteen, living in Provincetown, Massachusetts, out at the very tip of Cape Cod, when I became pregnant for the first time, and although I wanted to grow and know the life inside me, the thirty-three-year-old married man who had been having an affair with his employee for the past two years did not want another child, already having a toddler and a wife at home. So instead of driving me to my first doctor’s visit that I had scheduled, to learn all the vital information one learns on such an occasion, he drove me to the clinic, where he had made a different appointment and told me it was my choice but if I didn't choose the clinic, he would have nothing to do with me, or any baby for that matter, ever again. So, I walked into the clinic, terrified and numb, and let them suck the life out of me. I don’t even know how far along I was.

After that, at age twenty-one, I moved to Hawaiʻi.

I felt it was important to explore this connection in my performance between the grandmother I never knew and the loss of her first born child and my first experience with pregnancy. As a woman, my body becomes a space that other people want to control and to share this experience with my audience is an act of reclamation.

Akā, ma mua o kona kū ʻana ma ka mokupuni ʻo Oʻahu, i ke kūlanakauhale ʻo Honolulu, ua hoʻāo ke kaikamahine o Holyoke, ma Pololika, ma Key West, me ke kanaka no ka Lepupalika o Taika mai!

Akā, ʻaʻole maikaʻi loa ka hoʻāo a lāua. Ua ʻoki male lāua ma hope o kekahi mau makahiki.

ʻOiai, ua ʻimi ʻo Eleanor i ka ʻike ma ke kulanui Kaiāulu ʻo Kapiʻolani.

Ma laila, ua aʻo ʻia mai nā mea he nui.

Ua hoʻomau ʻo ia i ke kulanui o Hawaiʻi ma Mānoa ma hope o kona noho ʻana iho ma Kōlea Hema, ma Daegu, ma ke ʻano he haumāna kuapo kula. Ua hoʻomaʻamaʻa ʻia ʻo Hanguk mal a me ʻo Taekwondo ma Daegu iā 엘리 씨.

안녕하십니까. 저는 엘리입니다. 반갑습니다.

When I studied abroad in South Korea at age 25 for one semester, I joined the university taekwondo club, 기파랑, and practiced with them every weeknight for the just over 4 months I spent there. I didn’t miss a single practice. I went to a university taekwondo competition with my teammates, taking trains and buses to get to the capital (I lost in the first round), and I took a belt test right before the end of my stay (but never found out if I passed!).

While there, I traveled, went to festivals, historical towns, ate all the food, studied the history and language, using it whenever I could, attempting to understand what it really felt like to be among my new friends, experiencing the culture and ethos, learning, feeling, changing.

Ritualistically, every night after taekwondo practice, a big group of us would go out to eat some late-night food at one of literally hundreds of spots surrounding the university catering to students, and we would all drink soju. It was common to ask someone how many bottles of soju they could drink in one sitting (before becoming inebriated). 소주 많이 마셨어요! There were a bunch of different drinking games we played. There was even a bit of romance, but not much, not publicly.

But intimacy grew between my new friends and I during these liminal moments of bonding over food and alcohol after kicking each other. This is when I most learned how to “fit in,” during our communal ritual that’s whole performance and purpose was for only those involved. At the time, my only goals were to connect and grow and learn and understand humanity a little better by making the foreign familiar. To be open and authentic.

When my teammates presented me with a black belt on our last night out, with my name embroidered on it in hangul, the Korean alphabet, one of them said to me: “There has never been anyone like you before. 엘리 씨, 한국 사람이에요!” meaning, “You are a Korean person.”

In my performance, I did not explain the meaning of this last Korean phrase, and I debated including it here, but I want to discuss the omission of translation. Although it is possible that no one in attendance at my performance understood the literal meaning of these words, they still held meaning and were able to stand for the special moment of having them spoken to me. I discussed the decision with my Kumu Hailiʻōpua Baker, who met with and assisted me with revising the draft of my monologue script, especially the parts written in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, which needed quite a bit of discussion and editing. I told her what the phrase meant and she asked if I was going to tell the audience. I said I didn’t want to translate it, and she agreed with me that it was better left in Hangul. Similarly, none of the Hawaiian language sections were translated to English. I wanted each language to be allowed to tell its part of the story. I wanted to honor the languages of my host cultures that have accepted me into their rituals and the human beings who have shared their culture with me. Although they may not have been in the theatre physically, they were there with me and I was performing for all of them.

품새: 태극 1장

A laila, iā ia ma ke Kula Nui o Hawaiʻi ma Mānoa, ua lilo ʻo 엘리 씨, ʻo ia i ʻo Princess Katherine o Palani ma ka hana keaka a Wiliama Hoʻonāueueihe. Penei, i hoʻomaka ai ka hana keaka ʻana o Eleanor.

He mau wahi punahele kā Eleanor ma Honolulu: ʻo Kumu Kahua Theatre, ʻo The ARTS at Mark’s Garage, a me Fête. ʻO Robynne Maiʻi ka meakuke nui a me ka ʻona a Fête me kāna kane, ʻo Chuck, me he ʻohana lāua no ka mea nona kēia moʻolelo.

Ma laila, i “Chinatown,” me ka ʻakaʻaka nui a me ka pūʻolo waimaka, ua aʻo ʻia mai nā mea he nui e Eleanor.

ʻOiai, ua hānau ʻo ia ʻekolu pēpē, a ua lilo nō hoʻi, i makuahine.

Ma hope o ka hele ʻana akula o kāna mau keiki i ke kula, hoʻi maila ka mea nona kēia moʻolelo i ke kulanui o Hawaiʻi ma Mānoa, kohu mea lā hoʻi mai nei ʻo ia i kona hale.

A laila, a kapa ʻia ihola ka mea nona kēia moʻolelo ʻo Liʻulā.

Nui nā kumu hanohano e aʻo aku ai i ke kaikamahine no Holyoke a no Honolulu nō hoʻi.

I kēlā me kēia lā, e aʻo ʻia mai au, a e aʻo aku i nā keiki.

ʻO ke kuleana kaʻi alakaʻi koʻu ola.

“Kulāiwi” na Kumu Larry Kimura

My Kumu, Alicia Miyagusuku, explained one of the lines in the song in a way that deepened my understanding of Kuleana. “Ke kuleana o ka ʻōiwi” refers to the reciprocal rights and responsibilities of native Hawaiians in relation to their land and ancestors. She talked about how “iwi” means bones, and to be ʻōiwi means that the bones of your ancestors are not only buried in Hawaiʻi, but that they return to the ʻāina, one with the life grown here and the water that rains down upon you here. I am not ʻōiwi but my children are. The iwi of their ancestors are buried in this ʻāina. I grew their iwi in my body and they will always be part of who I am now. Their kuleana is my kuleana.

Mahalo

He Kūkā Kamaʻilio me Kumu Alicia Miyagusuku

2025-11-17T16:52:00.033-10:00

I ke kakahiaka o ka Pōʻalima aku nei, ma ka lā ʻumikūmāhā o Nowemapa, ua kūkā kamaʻilio māua me Kumu Alicia Miyagusuku ma mua o ka papa ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. He kumu ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi ʻo ia ma ke Kulanui o Hawaiʻi ma Mānoa me ke kuleana a me ka mālama o ka ‘āina.

Alicia Miyagusuku — Kumu Aʻo

He mana wahine ʻo Kumu Alicia Miyagusuku. Nui koʻu mahalo iā ia.

Eia nā wikiō o ka kūkā kamaʻilio.

Nā Papa ma Waho o Ka Lumi Papa

2025-10-15T07:36:00.005-10:00

Ua hui pū aʻela mākou, ka papa Performance as Research (Theatre & Dance 617), ma Capitol Modern: The Hawaiʻi State Art Museum ma ka lā ʻumi o ʻOkakopa, ka Pōʻalima nei, no ka haʻawina laha ʻole. Ma laila, ua aʻo mai ʻo Kumu Jhalak iā nā haumāna e pili ana i ka pilina o ka hana keaka a me ka hulahula me ka hana noʻeau. Ke holoholo nei nā haumāna ma ka hale hōʻikeʻike ā ua huki ʻia pākahi haumāna e kekahi hana noʻeau. A laila, e noʻonoʻo ana ka haumāna e pili ana i kēlā mea, a, ma hope o ka hapalua i ka hola paha, e hana kekahi hōʻike pane no kēlā hana noʻeau. I ka wā ma hope, e holoholo ana hou mākou i kēlā me kēia hana noʻeau no ka nānā ʻana nā hōʻike pane o nā haumāna.

Ua huki iaʻu kekahi hana noʻeau a Russell Sunabe, At the Beginning: Down was up. Up was Down, 2013–18, oil on canvas. Ma ia kiʻi pena, aia ka hānau ʻia o Hāloanakalaukapalili iā Hoʻohōkūkalani, ka makuahine o ka ola like ʻole.

Nani kēlā kiʻi pena, akā ua huki ʻia no kekahi mau mea. I kēlā lā, i ke kakahiaka, ma mua o ka hele ʻana i ka hōʻikeʻike, ua hana au ma ka Papa Loʻi o Kānewai me kaʻu mau keiki a me koʻu mau hoa haumāna no ka papa ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. Ma laila, ua haʻi mai iā mākou ʻo Makahiapo Cashman, ke alakaʻi o ia wahi hanohano, e pili ana i kekahi mau ʻano o ke kalo a me ka moʻolelo o ka hānau ʻia ʻana o Hāloanakalaukapalili iā Hoʻohōkūkalani.

No laila nō hoʻi ua huki iaʻu ia kiʻi pena. Ma hope o koʻu nānā a me noʻonoʻo ʻana, ua kakau au i ka mele e pili ana i kēlā kiʻi pena.

Ka Hōʻike ʻana i "Kulāiwi" (na Kumu Larry Kimura)

2025-10-09T18:22:00.083-10:00

I kēlā Pōʻalima nei, ua himeni mākou, nā haumāna o ka papa ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi 201, i ka mele "Kulāiwi" na Kumu Larry Kimura ma ka Launa Pū Paʻakai ma ke Kulanui o Hawaiʻi ma Mānoa.

Akā, ua hoʻomaʻamaʻa nui au ma mua o kēlā himeni ʻana. ʻAʻole au he mea himeni maikaʻi. Maopopo iaʻu, naʻe, he waiwai nui ka himeni i ke ʻano o ka pae ʻāina Hawaiʻi. No laila, ua hoʻomaʻamaʻa au a laila ua hōʻike.

Eia kekahi mau kiʻi ma laila:

What Fools We Mortals Be—DEATH OF A SALESMAN at MVT

2024-06-05T08:32:00.003-10:00

by Eleanor Svaton

What does it take to be successful in the business world? That’s what Willy Loman has never quite figured out. Unable to launch, he puts his hopes in his son, Biff, whom everyone loves, until they don’t.

"Be liked and you will never want. You take me, for instance. I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. 'Willy Loman is here!' That's all they have to know, and I go right through."

Willy imparts this wisdom to his son Biff in Arthur Miller’s timely drama, Death of a Salesman. The verity of the statement is questionable, like this next one:

"People love me. And you know what, I have been very successful. Everybody loves me."

Not Willy Loman this time, but rather convicted felon and twice-impeached former president of the United States Donald Trump. Both quotes may have been close to true at one point in each man’s life. But not anymore.

Just as Willy is trapped by his delusions of grandeur, many today relentlessly pursue material wealth while the 1% live light years beyond the average human’s wildest dreams, the entire world their playground. And yet, we think, if only we could somehow figure out the system, we could be living that life of luxury. We could be the winners instead of the losers. It’s the American way. The Dream. To not be a loser.

Dwight T. Martin and Amy K. Sullivan as Willy & Linda Loman

On Saturday, June 1, I attended the 7:30 PM performance of Death of a Salesman at Mānoa Valley Theatre. It was my first time experiencing this classic play, and I was enthralled from beginning to end. The production, directed by Linda Johnson, brought to life the Loman family, its orbit of characters, and the play's resonant themes on a beautifully designed multilevel set rising all the way up to the rafters, creating spaces that barely seemed to contain Dwight T. Martin as the larger than life salesman railing against the crumbling facade of his dignity.

While the set, designed by Michelle A. Bisbee, and the lighting design by Janine Myers suggested the entrapment and confinement of Willy Loman’s life, the sound design by Sarah Velasco, particularly the flute music that opened the show and recurred at poignant moments, emphasized what’s missing for Willy—a father figure, a leader, the elusive key to success he desperately seeks.

In an Substack article last year entitled “Willy Loman in the Age of Trump,” David Roberts wrote: “had Willy lived today, he would have been a die-hard supporter of Donald Trump. I’ve always felt a keen empathy toward Willy, and seeing him through this prism of politics in 2023 has deepened my understanding of the vast swath of my fellow citizens who covet the return of Trump to the Presidency.” Like Willy Loman, Trump believes in winners and losers in life. He says, be like me, and we’ll mop the floor with them.

What intrigues me is that you never get to see Willy Loman try to sell anything. That’s left to the imagination. We don’t see him out there on the road, one man and 700 miles, over and over again. Never really living the life he’s paying so dearly for, altering facts in his mind as he drives, little by little, to match the narrative of his dreams, even as they float further and further away, like shapes in the clouds that were never really anything at all.

My father was a salesman, until he retired a few years ago, during the pandemic, like so many others. And he started watching a lot of Fox News. We started having arguments about politics over the phone like never before. All of a sudden his day-to-day business of selling furniture as he’d done for over forty years was at an end, along with the rest of life as we knew it. And there was possibly the greatest snake-oil salesman of all time hawking exactly what he wanted to hear: none of this is your fault—it’s their fault, and we’ll be absolutely fine as long as you stick with me. And Dad ate it up. Is he a little senile? Maybe. If he reads this he can take it up with me. But I don’t think he and Willy Loman are all that different. My dad’s a survivor though, who was always ready to make a move—someone who has been willing to do whatever is necessary to succeed. He might be more like Trump than Willy after all.

I can’t recall Willy Loman saying anything remotely profound until he is pushed to the very edge. The rest is all smoke and mirrors. No substance. Be well liked. Make an impression. What does that even mean? It says nothing of values or morals. And maybe that’s what’s so relevant about this play: The crisis of values. A nation with aspirations to liberty and justice for all demands a higher standard than “be very well liked” and “make an impression.” In business, or capitalism, the value is in making money, and there are no morals. The rest has to come from elsewhere. Family values. And so I start to think about Willy’s wife, Linda.

Willy Loman is not possible without Linda Loman. She reveres him, glossing over his flaws, but also guides him in her way. Keeps him on track, sure that if they stay the course, everything will work out. One of the most telling moments of the play is when Willy’s older brother Ben (Allan Y. Okubo) proposes an adventurous opportunity in Alaska: Amy K. Sullivan’s Linda expresses absolute scorn towards Ben and easily redirects Willy to the predetermined path, a smooth display of Linda’s fierce protectiveness over the life she envisions for her family.

Biff Loman (Matthew Miller) blames his father for his own inability to be a successful businessman: "I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody!" You might say Linda does the same with Willy, blows him full of pride and delusion with her unwavering support, never acknowledging his failings.

I’ve always had an impression of Death of a Salesman, of Willy Loman, and it felt old and tired, depressing. Maybe that’s why I had never seen or read the play before. The production at Mānoa Valley Theatre, which runs for one more weekend, put me in my place. It’s excellent storytelling, with very strong performances all around and tight, powerful pacing, drawing the audience completely into the Loman family drama, spanning decades, each scene peeling away another layer of the facade, so that I became fully invested in understanding them, making sense of why they came out losers in the rat race of American life, ground down by the callousness of capitalism and the foolish reasons we mortals find to justify lying to ourselves and cheating one another.

Everybody Wants More 'Glitter in the Pa‘akai'

2024-05-23T12:13:00.006-10:00

by Eleanor Svaton

As part of ConFest 2024 under the banner of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (CAATA), taking place in Hawai‘i after a covid-induced delay of several years, Glitter in the Paʻakai, a hana keaka written and directed by Joshua “Baba” Kamoani‘ala Tavares, will be presented Friday night, May 24, 2024, on the Mainstage of John F. Kennedy Theatre at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM). The production was first presented on February 7, 2024, and had a five-show run in the Earle Ernst Lab Theatre at the same location, and then it was remounted for one performance for the ‘Ahahui Noi‘i No‘eau ‘Ōiwi (ANNO) Noi‘i Nowelo: An Inaugural Conference on Hawaiian and Indigenous Performance, held March 14 and 15, 2024, staged outdoors on the grass beside the theatre, under a big tent, with tables and food for all the guests of the conference attending the play—it was staged at a genuine lūʻau.

https://www.caata.net/confest-2024-glitter-in-the-paakai

Glitter in the Paʻakai is set outdoors under a tent, with tables and food for all the guests of the first-birthday lūʻau that brings one ‘ohana together in the same yard that has held them all for the lūʻau before that, and the one before that, with the ghosts of past experiences layered in each character’s mind, just below the present narrative. Written in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi with some English and Pidgin (Hawaiʻi Creole English), Glitter in the Paʻakai takes place on the island of Hawai‘i, in Hōnaunau, Kona, welcoming the audience into what I’ve heard my international students from Europe and South America refer to longingly as “a real lūʻau”—something they complained they could never find while visiting the islands—only the touristy stuff. Playwright Tavares, who also composed all original mele ʻāina for this hana keaka with each character in mind, invites the audience into a real lūʻau with characters that embody kanaka o ka ʻāina, characters you recognize a bit—or maybe they’re dead ringers—from your own ‘ohana if you have family from here in these islands, where culture developed sustainably for millennia but has been in flux for centuries. Where the ghosts of past experiences layer the land that wears a banner incongruent with its history.

In reflecting upon my experience both seeing the play and attending a Response at the conference the day after, the role of the mother, the matriarch of the family, especially in relation to queerness, stood out as a concept in opposition to rigid patriarchal definitions of family gender roles that prescribe the kinds of love humans are allowed to bestow and receive. Maya Rudolph’s SNL Mother’s Day monologue captures the queer definition of “Mother” in pop culture right now: she’s powerful, she does it all, she is to be worshiped. The article “Pop icons are ‘mothers’ now. The LGBTQ ballroom scene wants credit” (25 Mar. 2023) by Samantha Chery for the Washington Post underscores the importance of recognizing and respecting the cultural and historical roots of such terms, especially their connections to the experiences of Black transgender women and the broader LGBTQ community. A central theme of Glitter in the Paʻakai is a mother’s love, and the structure of the hana keaka highlights how patriarchal ideology at the heart of male-dominated monotheistic religions undermines the strength of the family by creating fear for not adhering to and enforcing rigid gender roles.

One of the questions we considered in the Response the next day at the conference was the significance of the loss of the patriarch in this family. I got the sense, though I couldn’t understand most of the language, that the loss of the dominant father figure was a major blow to the family from which they haven’t recovered. Yet the message of the hana keaka in the end is that a mother’s love is all encompassing. A mother accepts all her children. A mother understands how we all contribute, how all minds and hearts are special and valuable. It is a mother’s love that can build a family strong enough to withstand loss, even hers someday, because a mother spins a web and weaves all of her family together with the strength of her love. But a mother can only do so when her strength and centrality to the family structure is recognized and celebrated, when she is supported and revered. This is what the patriarchal religious ideology subverts—the strength and power of a mother’s love as central to family and community building—instead enforcing the ideology of the father’s masculine strength and domination over the family as the natural order of human relations, which limits the diversity and therefore true strength of families and communities. We end up with people who don’t fit in the allowed structure kept outside.

Glitter in the Paʻakai is a masterpiece, in my humble opinion, and will be both staged and studied for generations to come. As a mother, it inspires me to love my family without fear or stipulation; as a mother of keiki o ka ʻāina, it helps me see the possibilities for their lives more fully; as a settler on this land, it reminds me to do the work of decolonizing my thoughts by studying and living in accordance with the values and wisdom of Hawaiian culture; and as a world citizen, it urges me to share my thoughts in this way, to hopefully inspire others to use art and performance to think critically about our collective existence and the families and communities we are building for our children’s futures.

"All’s Well That Ends Well" as a Fairly Told Fairy Tale

2018-07-18T09:05:00.025-10:00

by Eleanor Svaton

When women work together to a common end... watch out, boys, you don’t stand a chance. This could be the moral of William Shakespeare’s play All’s Well That Ends Well. Or... A woman with her heart set on something knows no limitations. Or... A lustful woman is the most dangerous thing a man can face. Or even: A good man, when he is mastered by the right woman, becomes great. There are many ways to interpret this Shakespearean play with a woman as the main character. This is her story. In its current iteration as the premiere production of the 17th annual Hawaii Shakespeare Festival, co-founder and festival producer Tony Pisculli offers a rather pleasant interpretation of one of the Bard’s more challenging comedies, but with little in the way of a discernible moral, which is maybe his point.

Kapuaʻala, Fallon & Kong

All’s Well That Ends Well focuses on the orphan daughter of a brilliant doctor, Helena, whose desire compels her to procure its object regardless of the means. For many critics of the play, the ends do not, perhaps, justify the means, and all does not truly end, perhaps, quite as well as it seems. It’s a bit of a reverse Taming of the Shrew or an anti Romeo and Juliet, or quite likely a counter-narrative to both, having been written and first performed nearly a decade after those plays, at the very end of the reign of Elizabeth the First. Unlike its two aforementioned predecessors, All’s Wellportrays a deeply impassioned one-sided love, unrequited (like Romeo’s for Rosalind--if only Helena happened upon a Juliet-o to supplant her obsession with Bertram--er, wait, that didn’t end well at all), until the woman can “tame” her object (as Petruchio does Kate, another problematic happily ever after). Yet while Shrew and R&J are two of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, All’s Well hangs somewhere way down near the bottom of the list. People don’t seem to want to deal with a character like Helena and the consummating act of her plot to get the man she wants.

Pisculli’s production interprets this story as a Disneyesque fairy tale, replete with catchy, beautifully sung ballads (with sound design and original songs by Sean-Joseph Choo), magical special effects (lighting design by Cora Yamagata), entertaining caricatures, exquisite and delightful costumes (Rose Wolfe) and the requisite happy ending. The attempt is a thoroughly enjoyable success that lives up to the title of the play and the standards of the fairy tale genre.

The story is engagingly told: the acting and language are clear and captivating, with expressions and delivery as overtly emotive as you’d expect from a live Shakes-Disney musical. The Disneyfication also heightens the presence of pre-existing stock characters and tropes. Andy Valencia is sumptuous as the plotting not-so-evil stepmother of Helena (Stephanie Keiko Kong), a saccharine sweet, pathetically driven love-struck puppy of a girl. The King of France, played by Linda Johnson, is comedic gold early in the play as an afflicted ancient artifact, followed by a transformation reminiscent of the resurrection of King Théoden by Gandalf in The Two Towers. Finally, Maile Kapua`ala enchants and offends with panache in her swashbucklingly hilarious yet sympathetic portrayal of Parolles. Pisculli’s all-female productions are a product and result of the fact that Hawai`i is overflowing with ladies ready to take on any role as well or better than a man can. (Full disclosure: I’m a little biased in this case, having been part of several of those productions in the past.)

The original songs and music heighten the emotion and add to the sensory pleasure. Kong sounds like a Broadway star with every belted note. The frequency of the musical numbers are few and all are delightful, though the transformation from comedy to musicaI feels slightly incomplete, especially in the second half. A group number by the chorus of soldiers to illuminate the subplot having to do with the humiliation of Parolles, for example, could have been fun.

Like most Disney tales, the hidden, lurking “problems” in the plot are swept under the proverbial flying carpet, with the complexity of human relations simplified by superficial character portrayals. They all, presumably, live happily ever after. Pisculli, in his Director’s Note, invites the audience to “enjoy the happy ending, if that is your preference” while also allowing the freedom to see the production as “an ironic commentary on the state of Disney musicals.” While both points of view make sense based on this production, the possibility of interrogating the text more poignantly is lost.

The character of Helena is more complex and disturbing to me than your average Disney princess, and therefore more intriguing--part Ariel, part Ursula--heroine and villain. She is a young woman fanatically obsessed with the object of her desire, and extremely resourceful in refusing to believe that her destiny could be anything other than Bertram--willing to go to any length, to enlist any ally, to commit any act in order to succeed. In this production, however, she is a sweet, determined girl who will do anything for love, and Bertram (Claire Fallon), as the easily manipulated young royal, frustrated by his stifled ambition, seems about as dumb as most Disney pretty boys. Their depths are left unplumbed so that in the end, as the magic of the theatre fades away, so does one’s recollection of them, for such characters are not much worth further consideration. Fairy tale characters exist to represent ideals, whereas Shakespearean characters--and all the best Disney characters--are meant to represent the complexity of the human condition.

Graph: https://priceonomics.com/what-is-shakespeares-most-popular-play/

A Woman’s Place in the World—KA‘IULANI at Kumu Kahua Theatre

2015-03-31T19:05:00.006-10:00

by Eleanor Svaton

Originally produced in 1987, a world premiere that debuted at Kumu Kahua Theatre (KKT) and then went on tour all the way to Edinburgh, the epic Ka‘iulani has returned to the stage. This stylized rendition of the short and troubled life of Hawai‘i’s last heir to the throne grips the audience, surrounds and envelops them, embraces and breaks their collective hearts. Like being adrift at sea for many years, Ka‘iulani is more than a play: it is a journey, full of beauty, wonder, danger, pain, uncertainty, and homecoming, though home is never really what it once was upon returning.

Ka‘iulani—written by Dennis Carroll, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, Robert Nelson, and Ryan Page; directed by KKT Artistic Director Harry Wong III; and performed by an strong ensemble cast of women and men of various ages and ethnicities—takes a fluid approach to storytelling.

Danielle Zalopany as Princess Ka'iulani in the 2015 production of “Ka'iulani” at Kumu Kahua Theatre. (Photo by Denise DeGuzman)

The princess is portrayed through three stages in her life: first as a playful yet lonely child by Summer Royal; next as a student in Scotland, with her identity-split between her mingled heritage personified in the duo of Amanda Stone as Victoria and Domina Hoffman as Ka‘iulani; and finally as the fully formed woman returned to Hawai‘i, embodied, enheartened, and ensouled by Danielle Zalopany. These versions of the titular character form a chorus with the other female cast members: Jaime Bradner as governess to the young princess; Brooke Reams as a modern student perplexed about the significance of what she perceives as a wasted existence; Karen Kaulana as Princess Miriam Likelike, Ka‘iulani’s mother and a prophet, a seer in her last moments of a bleak future; and Anne Lokomaika‘i Lipscomb as HRH Queen Lili‘uokalani, a woman in no way ready to forsake her throne or her people. These girls and women are linked by costume, by physical closeness, by the circles they create together onstage, by the lei they exchange, by the love they extend one another, by the wombs in their bodies, the beauty in their hearts, by their feminine power, pain, position, and purpose. Ka‘iulani is a feminist play, exploring the role of women in a world of male dominance and aggression. The life of the princess becomes symbolic of the life of the Hawaiian kingdom, subjugated to the will of the outside world for exploitation and profit, powerless to protect itself from dominion, though never submitting willingly.

In contrast to the feminine orbit, male characters move in and out of the cosmos, separate, intrusive. Steven Royal plays Ka‘iulani’s father, Archibald Cleghorn, and William Ha‘o acts the part of her uncle, HRH King David Kalakaua. The two men take it in turn to navigate the future of the intended future monarch, sometimes in accordance, but not always. Other invasive voices barking history and proclaiming with assured importance belong to Jason K. Ellinwood, who impressively pontificates in three languages, and Brandon DiPaola. While the women are close, connected, harmonic like nature herself, the men sluice through the scenes, disturbing disruptions.

As I attempt to write this review, tears stand in my eyes. The scenes portrayed in the small space of Kumu Kahua Theatre are not meant to be related here in any journalistic fashion. They are meant to be experienced, for only then can the power of this drama, these performances, this story, Hawai‘i’s history, be felt and understood. The layers of meaning, the use of plants and flowers, of bodies and words, of kaona, of hula, of music and movement and dancing and fantasy, of historical narrative and artistic enactment, flow continually to cover the span of over a dozen years in the life of one woman, and yet it feels like a harnessing of the essence of the universe, for although this is a very Hawaiian story, it is also the story of humankind, of the eternal struggle, of the cycle of death and rebirth, of life and loss, of hope and despair, of dark and light. The play actually begins with reference to the Kumulipo, the story of Hawaiian cosmogony. It ends with the ending of all things, whenever that may be.

It is a blessing to witness Ka‘iulani at Kumu Kahua Theatre. The actors give perhaps the most important performances of their careers, and from what I’ve seen from many of them, certainly the most moving, heartfelt, and powerful. This production engages the mind and soul from start to finish, gripping tightly, evoking laughter and tears, changing the viewer so that you won’t quite feel the same about the world or your place in it afterwards.

SPOTLIGHT on Language—The Power of Immersion (Lā‘ieikawai at KT)

2015-03-03T17:53:00.007-10:00

by Eleanor Svaton

We think in words and they shape our world, give form, flavor, color, meaning to everything we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. The only language I’m fluent in is English, though I’ve studied a handful of others, such as Spanish, Czech, and Korean. I’ve learned to talk a little Pidgin and Japanese. And I’ve even learned some ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, though not as much as I would like. Why is it that I’ve lived in Hawai‘i for over eleven years but I don’t speak Hawaiian? If I had lived in Korea or Spain or Japan for that long, I would be fluent, for sure. No doubt in my mind. But those are independent nations, and Hawai‘i, once an independent Kingdom, is now occupied by the United States of English… I mean America.

Hawai‘i was more or less colonized and, through a series of reprehensible events, its people, culture, and, of course, language, severely diminished. For the past four decades or so, though, there has been a cultural renaissance taking place, building in momentum as the years go by. In his 2007 speech in Washington, D.C., Thomas K. Kalukukui, Jr. attributed this “powerful reawakening” to the maiden voyage of the Hōkūle‘a, when a group of “modern voyagers sailed from Hawai‘i to Tahiti and back, using the ancient method of navigating by the stars.” Hawaiian is definitely making a come back. Today, for example, you can get a master’s degree in Hawaiian Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM) from the Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, something that only came into existence in 2007.

Another “finally” moment happened recently with the establishment of the Hawaiian Theatre Program in UHM’s Department of Theatre and Dance, which saw its inaugural production over the past two weekends. I attended Lā‘ieikawai this past Friday evening and was completely blown away. It was very likely the most beautiful stage production I have ever witnessed. So completely did the set, the performers, the costumes and colors and design, the music, the movement, and the language combine to fill the voluminous Kennedy Theatre mainstage that I was completely transported, engaged, attentive, on the edge of my seat even. The production was performed completely in Hawaiian. No translation provided. Hitting the Stage staff reviewer Hester Lewellen, a colleague of mine whose writing I respect and appreciate, provided a very positive and thorough accounting of this magnificent production in last week’s issue. Her only negative opinion was the decision by director Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker not to include super- or sub-titles for non–Hawaiian speaking audience members. “I deplore a choice that leaves out half the audience,” she wrote in her review. I, however, feel compelled to disagree with Ms. Lewellen.

There were many moments over the course of the three-hour-long production on Friday night when I didn’t know what was being said. Many?—Most moments, actually! There were times when I couldn’t follow the plot. There were times when people around me were in on the joke I didn’t totally understand. I was a child, a baby really, and the story I witnessed was an immersion, a birthing into another culture, and it was encompassing in a way I haven’t experienced before. I found myself pleased when I caught the words that I did know the meaning of. I found myself struggling like a child with a puzzle trying to understand more deeply what I was witnessing. I found more than I could describe or articulate. I felt emotionally and intellectually connected to the world of Lā‘ieikawai. I wish I had had a chance to see it more than once. And I am especially thankful that there were no concessions made for the non–Hawaiian speaking members of the audience, or, to be more precise, for the only–English speaking audience members. Watching Lā‘ieikawai made me want to learn Hawaiian—from the language to the stories and the history—the culture of this place I call my home.

In her article, Ms. Lewellen mentions that “even the Metropolitan Opera of New York eventually caved” and started providing translations for its English-speaking audience. What I would point out, however, is that providing an English translation undermines the entire intention of a program like this, which is NOT merely to show what Hawaiian culture was, but rather to perpetuate and continually vitalize Hawaiian culture now, NOT simply to remember, but to renew and replace, to re-Hawaiianize this place, which means to de-Anglicize this place. The Met offers European operas and with English translations. Okay, fine. But this is a play about Hawai‘i in ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i being performed through the Hawaiian Theatre Program at the University of Hawai‘i. Why, oh for the love of language, why should there be any English? There shouldn’t. And so I applaud Dr. Baker for her exquisite production and her deep understanding of the power of language, a power that would have been severely altered through translation.

Can any translation to English truly capture a language so closely connected to performance as Hawaiian, so rich with kaona? I’m glad I didn’t have to find out on Friday night. English is my birth tongue, my mother tongue, a part of me as much as my skin and my voice, but I don’t want it at the expense of other language and tongues and skins and voices. E ola mau ka ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i! (If you don’t know what that means, look it up and learn.)

SPOTLIGHT on Live Theatre—Engage! (Flowers of Hawai‘i at KKT)

2013-12-18T18:05:00.000-10:00

by Eleanor Svaton

There’s something to be said for the comfort and anonymity of a movie theater: the big screen, the darkness, the loudness, the popcorn, candy, and soda, the relatively comfy chairs, the AC—a biggie here in Hawai‘i. Many people are happy to spend a couple hours and more than a couple dollars on even a mediocre picture because the experience of going to the movies is so pleasant and entertaining.

Kati Karoda as Mary V. and Jacob Song as Eddie, courtesy of Kumu Kahua Theatre

The theatre—notice the two-letter reversal at the end—does not hold the same allure for the average American. Plays, musicals, improv and other staged performances don’t tend to offer the same supersized gluttony as the movies. There are no close-up shots, no Hollywood edits. No popcorn and soda. No lounging. When watching a play, audience members may not feel anonymous and comfortable. They may not feel passively and pleasantly entertained. They may actually feel compelled to sit up straight, keep quiet, and observe intently so as not to miss a thing.

One reason many people say they’re not interested in seeing theatre is because they think it’ll be boring. It’s true that not all plays captivate, but neither do all movies. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that the majority of theatrical releases aren’t any better than the average play or musical put on stage in Hawai‘i this year. Yet the majority of people have seen more movies than stage shows. Maybe that one play someone saw left a bad impression. Maybe it was back in high school. Maybe some of these resisters have never seen a play! Maybe it’s the duty, therefore, of every theatre-loving person reading this to make a 2014 New Year’s resolution: “This year, I will drag a non-theatre-lover to a show that will change their perspective (hopefully!).”

I saw Flowers of Hawai‘i a few nights ago at Kumu Kahua Theatre, and all I kept thinking was, I wish every person on this island who thinks theatre is boring could see this play. There was so much to enjoy, so many surprises, and a barrage of distinct, human, flawed, and fully recognizable characters. And they were LIVE. They were portrayed by talented actors only feet away from any audience member’s face. The amount of creativity with lighting, scene changes, staging, music, and overall composition offered the kind of experience going to the movies never could and never will. Sure, you could take Lee Cataluna’s excellent script and make a film, but you could never capture the inherent theatricality of this production directed by Harry Wong III, someone who understands why live theatre is better than going to the movies.

If only everyone could understand...

An Astounding Contrast—SOUND AND BEAUTY at KKT

2013-06-04T19:12:00.010-10:00

By Eleanor Svaton

What do we crave from theatre—intellectual or emotional stimulation?
In Sound and Beauty, both types pervade, though not at once.

The two acts of David Henry Hwang’s Sound and Beauty are actually separate stories, though they reflect one another through themes, language, and staging. And yet, the experience of each act in sequence provides an astounding contrast. Act one—The Sound of a Voice—is an eerie, distant, mysterious adult fairy tale influenced and shaped by Asian theatre techniques: a lush, layered soundscape filled with stylized movement, vocals, and scene transitions. Act two—The House of Sleeping Beauties—offers a more realistic, modern take on some of the same themes: aging, beauty, loneliness, and love—a haunting human tale. The first act prepares the way for the second—as a first act should—but not as one would expect. In fact, Director Taurie Kinoshita delivers the subtle one-two punch with the deftness of an attentive lover, so that the effect of the blows doesn’t fully land until the show is long over.

The Sound of Intellect
There’s a school of thought, rooted in Asian theatre styles and advocated by the late Bertolt Brecht, that embraces and celebrates the performative quality of theatre, heightening rather than attempting to conceal the fact that a play and the characters on stage are not real, but rather a presentation of a story for the purpose of stimulating an intellectual, before an emotional, response. The presence of emotion, proponents of presentational theatre would argue, stifles or obscures the inclination or ability to think clearly and deeply. Sound avoids emotional distraction through distance, a space in which to question, contemplate, and analyze.

The story is cyclical, presented in nine scenes that alternate between night, morning, evening, dawn, and day. There is a sense of timelessness, as a travelling man, who has stopped by the secluded house of a woman, remains and ostensibly falls in love. The two characters quietly exude secrecy and the very air seems to whisper, or is it the flowers? From their first words to one another, the actors establish a sense of the act’s performative style: their delivery rings unnaturally through the hush of the theatre. Their words take on an ominous quality, almost as if the characters are each narrating their individual parts. In complement, the use of practiced and precise movement and gesture conveys volumes in terms of storytelling.

Jennifer Clayton portrays Woman, who calls herself Hanako, while Andrew Lum acts the part of Man. The audience experiences the story along with Man, who never goes offstage. His reason for coming to Hanako’s house in the first place remains unclear until late in the tale, though he is seen grappling through the nights with a kind of demon that might be an externalized product of his inner psyche or some dark magic of Hanako’s, who may be a witch. Such thoughts creep through the theatre and the mind, accented and punctuated into questions and possible answers by Kinoshita’s dramatic choices, such as shadows behind a backlit screen accompanied by startling percussion and the appearance of movement through suspended time.

While the staging washes the senses, the story engages the intellect. What does it mean to love? To stay with one person in one place? Is it resignation? Loss of self and freedom? Hanako says, “It takes hundreds of words to describe a single act of caring. With hundreds of acts, words become irrelevant.” Her love sounds simple though it requires constant effort and attention: care. But for Man, submission to this care equals defeat. The final moment of Sound is a dangling, provocative period, marred slightly by over-accentuation.

Denise Aiko Chinen and Dann Seki, as Woman and Yasunari Kawabata, courtesy of Kumu Kahua Theatre

The Beauty of Emotion
Western theatre, and Western art in general, historically has had a relatively—though not exclusively—realistic style when compared with its Eastern equivalents. The goal is often for the line between actor and character to dissolve so that they are one in the same. This kind of performance, when done well, can have an intense emotional impact, depending on the nature of the story.

Denise Aiko Chinen and Dann Seki, as Woman and Yasunari Kawabata, successfully achieve this seamlessness, which immediately marks the second act as distinctly different from the first. Hwang’s play is based on a real person who actually wrote a “novelette” called House of the Sleeping Beauties, and so realism makes more sense in this act, which is set in Tokyo in 1972 in a kind of chaste brothel where young women sleep through the attentions of old “gentlemen.” The play imagines the scenario that could have led Kawabata to write his story. The idea of “sleeping beauties”—drugged girls from poor families—being stroked by the wrinkled fingers of men old enough to be their grandfathers ought to be infuriating, especially since this is the realistic half of the evening. The proprietor of the House deserves condemnation, and the “guest” and she should both be arrested. On an intellectual level, how can civilized people not be offended? And yet, both characters are extremely sympathetic. This is the power of emotion.

Told in four scenes, this slightly longer act enraptures. The strange, disturbing circumstances of the House, of what happens in the back rooms where the beauties sleep, of what will happen to Kawabata, who dreams of his friend (another historical figure) Mishima’s hari-kari, of what will happen to the Woman, who remembers her past without fully revealing it—all these threads form a labyrinth of suspense and dark fascination, the mind reaching, searching, while the actors play the heartstrings like a samisen. Beneath lie the deeper questions of the human condition: What do we see in the dark when sleep eludes? Can the need for human connection ever be truly satisfied? Where do we go to die?

The only distance between Seki and Chinen’s characters and the audience is in the physical space of the theatre. Kinoshita’s opposing choices heighten each act, the first in retrospect, and the second in the moment. At the same time, the first act never leaves the stage, with certain props, costumes, and lines of dialogue marking them as connected. One is the past, but the past and the present are not separate. The future is merely tomorrow’s past. Similarly, the mind and the heart are two parts of the person, and while they may be alternatively engaged, they are never really separate. Finally, the East and the West, the presentational and the representational, the performative and the realistic, the I and the you, are all parts of the same whole, all embody the same desires and losses, and all end in nothing but what stories and memories are left behind.

A Brilliant Glass-Half-Full Spectacle – ALICE IN WONDERLAND at LT

2012-11-14T08:25:00.000-10:00

The anticipation of seeing Alice in Wonderland had me giddy—the characters, the wordplay, the wonder, and, not to be forgotten in such a fabulous list, young Alice herself; after all, Wonderland represents the inner-workings of her child-mind. At least that’s the publicized theory behind this production: Jungian psychology.

Photo (stolen from facebook) Credit: Raymond Rivera

Leeward Theatre, director Betty Burdick, and designers John Signor, Donald J. Ranney, Jr., Sarah Whitehead, Mark Kalani Imaizumi, Chelsea Campbell, Cocoa Chandelier, and Johathan Reyn present a landscape of enchantment inhabited by brilliantly decorated characters. The spectacle of colorful set pieces, props, costumes, makeup and lighting combine with musical notes of tantalizingly mysterious charm to draw the viewer deep down the rabbit hole.

Alice, played by Tina Uyeno, alternates regularly between practiced and polished wonder, contempt, and gladness, all delivered with singsong intonation. She treats the role with exaggerated monotony rather than the boundless imagination and honesty of true childhood—a regrettable trap in which to fall because the entire world of the play depends upon her interaction for vitality and continuity.

There are moments of captivating delight on this episodic journey as well as moments of awkwardness. The show is in fact a musical, with many key characters breaking into songs of varying styles, like punk rock, jazz, and rap. This would work well if there were some compelling indication that Alice’s psyche gives birth to each moment, each character, each song, each episode—but that’s a hard sell. The production could benefit from a few more signals or patterns for our puzzle-loving brains to put it all together, especially from Alice.

The show boasts creative choreography, with bodies flipping, climbing, and bouncing in multiple directions. Torsos and limbs become parts of the set. The flower garden, with a cluster of giggling Daisies, an unflappable Tiger Lily (Jasmine Kaleihiwa Dunlap), a sassy Rose (Kehaulani Brown), and shimmying Larkspurs (Jaime Bradner and Rachael Souza), sets the imagination free in its delicately balanced simplicity. For this moment of the play, talking flowers live. Wonderland exists. The actors and the characters fit together as one, each component neither too bold nor too bland. And, they’re having fun. It’s obvious that these flowers/actors enjoy every line, laugh, and lilt of petal. Enjoyment tends to be infectious, especially from stage to audience.

Other actors find comparable success at filling their flamboyant roles because they exhibit similar symptoms of uninhibited playfulness. Leeward veterans Reb Beau Allen (Mad Hatter) and Shawn Anthony Thomsen (Mock Turtle) are crowd favorites for precisely this quality.

There are a number of endearing elements to this production, such as the Oyster chorus (where each member’s head is a pearl), the Tea Party scene (with a sexy March Hare—Melissa Kenigton—and an adorably drowsy Dormouse—Michelle Umipeg), the comic Gryphon (Shaiden Nagai), and Alice’s encounter with the Red Queen (Andrea Valencia), whose tender yet domineering ways did seem like a projection of Alice’s psyche. Plus, the whole thing is modernized, with TV screens projecting iPhone-style text messages to define particular words, like queer, for instance.

Leeward’s Alice ambitiously creates one of the most awesome and extravagant versions of Wonderland this side of the looking glass, a design-team-gone-wild world. For those of us with certain high hopes and expectations when it comes to one of the most beloved made up places of all time, this Wonderland will likely confound, amaze, enervate, and please.

NOVEMBER 9-10, 15-17, 2012 8PM
NOVEMBER 11, 2012 4PM
$23 Adults
$20 Students, Seniors, Military
$15 under 12
Receive $5 off listed price when you purchase in advance!

Questions Raised by Frames – UNCLE VANYA AND ZOMBIES at KT

2012-11-12T21:05:00.001-10:00

The trick to why television and movies are so popular, so prevalent, so everyday, has to do with catharsis. The average person can experience the world without ever leaving the couch. We believe what we see on the screen enough to have physical reactions: an increase in heart rate, an outburst of laughter, the welling of tears in our eyes. Theatre, with its obviously constructed nature, isn’t able to match the believability of film, no matter how hard a production may try. This could be seen as a limitation, but only if the object of a play is to be as “real” as what’s on screen. A better objective might be to play with the very idea of realness, believability, and the human desire for catharsis. This is what Uncle Vanya and Zombies does.

The play is actually a play within the frame of a reality TV show within the frame of a theatre within the frame of a Zombie-infested version of O‘ahu. The contestants are acting in Chekhov’s classic in the hopes of winning a ticket to the mainland. While performing, they must fend off zombies, stay in character, remember their lines, and not die and turn into zombies. Two TV host personalities introduce the audience to the concept, while ostensibly also speaking to the viewers at home. The series, we are told repeatedly, has raised millions in relief funds for the victims of Pearl Harbor II, the nuclear accident that resulted in all the zombies.

This show is funny. The many frames, including a giant electric fence surrounding the set, separate the audience from a genuine emotional connection to anyone or anything on stage. The characters in the play aren’t real—they’re just part of a reality show. The contestants aren’t real—they’re just actors. The hosts aren’t real because this is all some kind of big joke. We, the audience, aren’t even real—we’re acting too. We’re in on the joke. So we laugh. Look at them trying to perform a play while spastic zombies attack. So ridiculous. As if a show like this could ever really exist. As if human beings could be so crass. Listen to how the lines in the play relate to the made-up situation for which the play is being performed. The corruption and greed of humanity. How desperate people are, whether because of love or zombies. How clever! Ha-ha!

For those who might wonder why Vanya and zombies, “Chekhov expert” Craig Howes comes in between rounds to give a mini-lecture, culminating with the idea of consumption. We are consumers—we are consumed. Physically, mentally, literally, and metaphorically.

The frameworks that serve to distance also indict the audience. Director Markus Wessendorf includes the spectator and says, look at these pathetic people, see how they suffer, isn’t it wonderful?, and when we nod our heads and laugh, we comply. Wesserndorf employs the concepts of influential German theatre revolutionary Bertolt Brecht (which is not surprising given that he engineered Hawai‘i’s very own Brecht Festival a couple of years back). While Vanya and Zombies superficially provides clever entertainment for the zombie-loving masses, sociopolitical messages confront the audience on a more subliminal level, raising thought-provoking questions: Why is suffering entertaining? Why do we laugh as characters fight for their lives?

The messages, not restricted to the play, reflect other public entertainment venues. Why do crowds boo injured players on the football field just because they didn’t catch a ball? Or why do they cheer at home if the suffering player is on the other team? Beyond that, we now have fantasy sports, where people pick and choose live players as if they were pieces on a virtual board game. Mass entertainment allows for the dehumanization of contestants, and yet pretend characters on our favorite TV shows bring us to tears.

I can imagine this production staged with audience on all sides, as opposed to proscenium, like a sporting event. The proximity of audience members to the actor-contestants (and zombies) probably would have raised the stakes. The whole production could have been more interactive, energizing, and poignant, while still providing distance created by the multiple frames—a mental rather than physical difference. As it was, the audience neither cheered nor cried. We laughed. And so I wonder how many felt confronted with the questions I found after meditating on what I had seen. The detachment, I fear, may have been too complete, leaving many merely entertained. Then again, perhaps I’m not giving the zombie-loving masses enough credit.

Tickets and Showtimes

Nov 9, 10, 15, 16, 17 at 8pm
Nov 18 at 2pm
Regular: $24.00
Seniors, Military, UH Faculty/Staff: $22.00
UHAA Members: $15.00
Students: $13.00
UH Manoa Students with Valid ID: $5.00

Pupu with the Living Dead

2012-10-04T10:55:00.000-10:00

Historical figures come back to life in the Mission Cemetery

If all the world’s a stage, that must include graveyards. And what better location for bringing back to life long-dead historical people of Hawai‘i’s history than in a cemetery—at the very spot where their remains lie buried? Cemetary Pupu Theatre, presented by Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives, is back with an all-new cast of prominent departed Hawai‘i residents.

Ha‘o rises from Kanui’s grave
Photo courtesy of Mission Houses

Each character has been thoroughly researched and the monologues are all based on historical, documented fact. This season, patrons will meet an array of intriguing persons, with each monologue scripted by Zach Thomas, who also plays the part of Reverend Hiram Bingham. Other characters include: William Kanui, played by William Ha‘o, one of only two native Hawaiians buried in the Mission Cemetery; Mary Tenney Castle, played by Jo Pruden, of the famed Castle Trust; William Beals—a hapa under the care of Sybil Bingham, the reverend’s wife; and Anna Rice Cooke, who founded the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

“I think people might be surprised at what they learn,” said Mike Smola of Mission Houses. “They might not know, for example, that many Hawaiians went to the gold rush in California.”

“And Hiram Bingham was beat up by a mob of sailors” he disclosed. “But people will have to come down to find out why.”

The evening will feature pupu and drinks from 5-6pm, then the cemetery tour until 8pm, followed by more pupu and more drinks, which is good, because connecting with the dead can work up a serious appetite.

Smola emphasized the bigger emotional connection to history this kind of experience provides. “People are interested in the gravestones after. They want to get close and really look at them.” Now that’s something you couldn’t do in any old theatre.

[Mission Cemetery (assemble at the Mission Houses, 553 S. King St.), Fri-Sat, 10/5-10/13, 5-9pm, $60, [www.missionhouses.org], 447-3926]

Cuz That's What the Play's About — ONE COMEDY OF ERRAS at KKT

2012-09-24T22:53:00.000-10:00

Shawn Anthony Thomsen is not only my friend, but also one of my theatre heroes. Not the kind of hero that basks in the glory of constant praise with puffed-out chest and arms akimbo. The kind of hero that works long and hard, day after day, for all the right reasons. The kind with a touch of genius tempered by a dash of humility. A seriously gifted sense of humor balanced by an acute sense of seriousness.

Photo by Jonathan Reyn (stolen from Shawn Thomsen's facebook page)

OK, he’s not dead or anything. He’s just directing his first show at Kumu Kahua Theatre. And, in my obviously biased opinion, he kills it. Given a script loaded with stereotypical and not-so-stereotypical Honolulu characters, twists and turns, talktalktalk, hitting, yelling, singing, insulting, and then some, it’s hard to imagine a director actually adding and layering. But that’s exactly what Thomsen does. He embraces Taurie Kinoshita’s One Comedy of Erras, wraps his arms around it, caresses it, shapes it, leaves his fingerprints all over it. In the tradition of Kumu’s Artistic Director Harry Wong III, Thomsen makes theatre that is a celebration of the artform and the unique qualities of this particular play.

What I especially enjoyed about this production is the way themes are magnified and compounded through the choices made.

Hawai‘i is a place where people keep time a little differently than, say, in Hartford, Connecticut. What’s the rush? Why not relax a little longer, talk story, enjoy good company? From the very beginning, it’s clear that this production is in no rush to get where it’ll somehow eventually end up. And that makes sense. That’s what the play’s about. Realizing this, the second act delightfully rolls out one scene after another, each more elaborate and unexpected than the previous.

Hawai‘i is a place where all types of people are accepted for who they are and who they choose to be. We no judge, K. We not all stuckedy uppity, “you not the right kine person for this kine part cuz you no look, act, dress the right way.” That’s what the play’s about.

Hawai‘i is a place where we know how to laugh, but where we also care, a lot. That’s what the play’s about.

There’s only one weekend left to see this show, and it’ll probably be all sold out before long cuz everyone like wait till the last minute cuz all ste on Hawai‘i time, and so I almost didn’t bother writing a review. But then I thought, why not? Only take a little bit time for sit and think and tell my one opinion. And so here it is. Cuz that’s what Enter Offstage is about.

Runs through 9/30 at Kumu Kahua Theatre

Superficial Authenticity — A DOLL'S HOUSE at TAG

2012-06-24T00:31:00.000-10:00

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is a very “well made” play. It follows all of Aristotle’s rules about unity, telling a detailed story without jumping around in time or changing the scene location. This is an old fashioned play and TAG’s Brad Powell delivers an old fashioned production. You can almost imagine it as a film in black and white.

Roberge, Jones, & Farmer
Courtesy of TAG—The Actors' Group

But this is a play. Live and in color. Which is good, because otherwise you’d miss how lovely the set and costumes are. The small theatre abounds in detail, from the stove to the picture window to the decorated Christmas tree and so much more. Andy Alvarado has truly outdone himself. Carlynn Wolfe’s and Christine Valles’s costumes complete the transportation to 1890’s Norway.

The story centers on Nora and the moment when her world, or what she imagines it to be, dissolves. And beyond the mirage she finds the mirror, and faces, for the first time in her life, unadorned reality. This production actually features a mirror, in which Nora likes to gaze at her pretty reflection, exemplifying her preoccupation with superficiality.

The actors tell the story quite well, each playing his or her part in the melodrama, some more mellow and some more drama. Anemone Jones has the part of Nora. Her portrayal is energetic and very committed, though a touch disconnected at times, especially in scenes with her husband, Torvald Helmer, played by Aaron Roberge, who has about as much charisma as a dead fish in this role, which, I suppose, is his interpretation of Torvald’s character.

The chemistry lacking between husband and wife ought to be made up for by Nora’s relationship with Torvald’s good friend Dr. Rank, played by David C. Farmer. The idea is that Nora and Dr. Rank have developed an intimate relationship—too intimate, though Nora pretends the whole thing is perfectly innocent. Unfortunately, in this production, there’s no sexual tension at all. This Doll’s House is built in a world a bit more PG than I expected.

Some of the very best moments in the show happen during scenes featuring Nora and her old friend just arrived on the scene, Kristine, played by Sara Cate Langham. The women—as is so often true—are the ones with the real chemistry. When watching Jones and Langham, the world of the play truly fills the space of the theatre, and instead of two actresses, there are two women, Nora and Kristine, seeing one another again after many years of separation.

Despite my partially unfulfilled expectations—something bound to happen with such an iconic play—this is absolutely a show worth seeing. The actors are competent if not excellent, the design elements show TAG at its best, and the flavor of the original play saturates the air of the theatre somehow. There is something very authentic about this production, while at the same time there is something rather superficial. A melodrama. A reflection and a mirage. Like Nora. And like society or civilization or whatever you might label the illusion of order we humans so desperately crave.

[runs through Sunday, July 1. Thursday-Saturdays, 7:30 pm, Sunday matinees, 2 pm, 650 Iwilei Road, Suite 101, taghawaii.net/, 722-6941]

Halloween Comes Early to Honolulu — JANE AUSTEN ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE at AMG

2012-06-23T12:32:00.000-10:00

by Guest Contributor

Becky McGarvey

There was a large turnout at the ARTS at Marks Garage this past Thursday. Although the art exhibit (pottery by local artists) was beautiful and would have drawn a crowd on its own, this particular crowd was excited to be the first to see a special preview performance of On The Spot's Jane Austen Zombie Apocalypse, which turned out to be the best play I've seen all year.

[Photo taken from Jedi M. Aster's Facebook album]

Jane Austen Zombie Apocalypse is exactly what it sounds like. But instead of just being yet another play/book/movie to rent space in the recent popular zombie trend, Zombie Apocalypse is a very well-written, well-acted, well-done production that has what so many popular plays/books/movies are missing these days—a good story.

The play follows main character Katherine Montgomery—played by Lisa Anne Nilsen—a strong young woman who likes to play with pistols and rapiers. All of England is beset by zombies and while the men go to the front lines to fight the invasion, Katherine Montgomery and her family continue to try and live life as normally as possible, worrying over future husbands and inheritances.

Writer/Director Garrick Paikai uses his comedic timing to lure the audience into a sense of security, employing familiar Jane Austin quotes and basing his characters on her famous characters. Just when you start to think it's too much like a book you were forced to read in high school, and later forced to watch with your girlfriend when it became a movie, the director takes you in a completely different direction and keeps true to the unique story of these characters. The tale is rich with twists and turns, and although the characters are based on characters that have been written before, they are all endearing, funny, and captivating in their own right. The actors play them with such conviction that they are creatively special. Each one has moments throughout the play where they are spot-lit with brilliance and the actors move their audience from broken ribs to broken hearts.

Nilsen is a formidable heroine. With a great emotional range and impressive stage fighting skills, she suspends belief and gives rightful respect to Tony Pisculli's fight choreography, which cannot be easy in such a small performance space. Alice and Mrs. Montgomery, played by Britni “Lolli” Keltz and Alissa Joy Lee, are incredibly endearing and add a nice sparkly contrast to Katherine's stronger character, and they know how to charm an audience.

Equally charming are the men, from brooding and handsome to lovesick and silly; it is rare to see a work with a large and satisfying male cast. Edward Fallon and his associate John Radcliffe, played by JEDI and Dezmond Gilla, are the perfect English gentlemen; at times we forget we're in Hawai‘i. Sweet George Price, played by stage veteran Stu Hirayama, is consistent from his first entrance as a poor man with a heart of 24k gold. Guest Contributor to our own Enter Offstage, Marcus Lee is perfectly ridiculous as George Elliot: a self-important, pompous creep. Yet you don't have much time to dislike him while you're laughing.

The true comedic stars, however, are Mr. Simon and Mr. Frost, two cockney elements that trick your mind even further into believing we're all sitting in zombie-infested England. Played by Jose R. Ver and Jose Dynamite, this duo plays with the audience, alluding to the fact they're in a play, offering little comedic escapes from the zombies, and also providing explanations for holes in the story that the writer openly and proudly pokes fun at.

This is still very much a play about a zombie apocalypse. Alissa Joy Lee, as the make-up artist for the zombies, creates truly horrifying creatures. Although the zombies have no speaking parts, they are unbelievably scary and have no qualms about getting too close to an audience member, and grabbing them. A creepy soundtrack by sound designer R Kevin Garcia Doyle and composer Art Koshi, combined with a fog machine, are in no way helpful. It is advised you see this play with someone who is not squeamish, or who won't mind if the squeamish ones hold their hand a little too tightly.

This is very much a players' play: from melting the fourth wall to clever blocking to the transformation of the single set, if you are a theatre person you are in for a tasty treat. Not to say that non-theatre people won’t appreciate the comedy or the references, but they may not understand how really impressively clever some of them are. There are hidden elements of improv that are only revealed through a directors note in the program, and the technical crew turning red from trying not to laugh.

Whether you're an avid Jane Austen fan or an avid zombie fan, go see Jane Austen Zombie Apocalypse this or next weekend. You will be bitten and mutate into an avid theatre fan. As an original work, if you do not leave the theatre scared or hurting from laughing, you will, at least, be impressed.

[Two weekends only; 8:00pm on June 22-23 & 28-30 and on June 23 and July 1 at 4:00pm at The ARTS at Marks Garage. Tickets are $20 general and $15 for students. Sunday matinee shows are $15.]

The Ebb and Flow of Resistance — KĀMAU A‘E at KKT

2012-06-08T16:18:00.003-10:00

Has anything changed in fifteen years?


Timtim, Murray, and Jaime Bradner as Lisa Kealoha Courtesy of Kumu Kahua

That’s one of the questions I’m left with after seeing Kāmau A‘e, Alani Apio’s dramatic interpretation of the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement and its impact on one particular family. The play premiered at Kumu Kahua Theatre in 1997, three years after its predecessor Kāmau, which had its revival in 2007. In the program, the setting is listed as “Present Day”—today, as opposed to the present day of its creation, fifteen years ago. And so the question...has anything changed? What does the play mean today? Is it more or less powerful, relevant, accurate?

This may not be for me to answer, first, because I never saw the original production, and second, because I have only lived in Hawai‘i since 2003. It is, however, something this revival calls into consideration. Fifteen years is barely a teardrop in the grand scheme of things, but in mere human time, it could easily be considered a generation.

The play is set in the present, and the past, moving forward in time, while also slipping back, like waves in the ocean… A sense of repetition, of remembrance, of ghosts permeates. The intimate space seamlessly transforms from a prison cell to a house to a beach with only the subtlest of cues. There are no blackouts or scene changes to interfere with the unfurling of the drama in its many tendrils. Lighting helps to indicate when and where the action takes place, as does the use of different areas of the multilevel stage and alternative entrances leading to and from tangibly imaginable offstage locations. A palpable, immediate Hawai‘i. A real place with real people. And all too real issues.

Elevating the truth of this production are the performances of Charles Kūpahu Timtim and Sharon R. Garcia Doyle.

Timtim’s Michael Kawaipono Mahekona—the cousin in tune with his ancestry, the ‘āina, the old ways, a Hawai‘i slipping through the broken fishing net—is a bundle of raw nerve endings, and yet a kind soul, genuinely interacting with the audience, making one forget that this is an actor reaching for your hand. His sincerity is matched only by his pain—both are genuine.

In sharp contrast, Doyle’s Wainani Carson is a sovereignty activist with her head (not necessarily her heart) in the game: a politician, calculating, hardened. The dynamic between these two characters—and the rest of their “occupy” group—speaks to the movement’s diversity, as multi-faceted as its individual members, with as many reasons for fighting, both with the outsiders and one another.

On the opposite side of the land battle drama, William Murray plays Alika Kealoha, the other cousin, pragmatic and firmly footed in the present. By the end of the play, Alika’s reasoning breaks upon the storm and frenzy of Michael, his ghosts, and the media circus (though there is only one media character, the play manages to convey greater coverage, especially through the use of the audience). The resolution, like the whole, is open to interpretation, and different for everyone.

Wil T.K. Kāhele's direction is inventive and continually engaging. Parts of this drama are fun and playful, with moments of deep beauty—like when the Ghost of Tūtū Kane (played by William Ha ‘o) sings alongside his chosen one, Kawaipono, on the beach. But this is, at heart, an intense and emotional telling of the personal struggle and indomitable will of one individual against a sea of resistance, even from those supposedly on the same side, to kāmau a‘e—to carry on.

In the end, it’s difficult to say whether Michael Kawaipono has carried something forward or has himself remained behind to carry on with the ghosts.

Creative History, Complex Characters — WILCOX'S SHOT at KKT

2012-04-20T11:17:00.000-10:00

With a more-than-capable cast, O’Malley’s Shot hits the mark

Theresa & Robert

Who was Robert William Kalanihiapo Wilcox? A revolutionary, a rebel, a patriot, a lover, a congressman? In Sean T.C. O’Malley’s latest play, his third featuring this historical character, Wilcox is depicted in the later part of his career, as the first Hawaiian delegate to congress. Unfortunately, since Hawai‘i is at that time a territory to the US, Wilcox’s position lacks a vote, and therefore any real power in Washington City. Wilcox’s Shot, a world premiere at Kumu Kahua Theatre (KKT), gets inside the life of the man, exploring his relationships and his struggle to make a difference in the face of indifference, or worse.

You don’t have to know the history to understand the issues brought forth in Wilcox’s Shot—just pay attention. O’Malley places his protagonist in the political stew of 1901 America, exposing the complexities of race, place, and gender relations.

Historical fact pulled from newspaper articles and other reliable sources, music and performance art of the period, and the suppositions of a talented imagination combine through a series of realistic and stylized scenes into a compelling drama. O’Malley’s dramaturgical prowess provides Director Brett T. Botbyl with a number of challenging opportunities.

The early scenes develop the playfully intimate relationship between Wilcox and his wife, Princess Theresa Owana Ka‘oheleani La‘anui Wilcox, played by Danielle Zalopany, whose expressions throughout manage to convey quite a few unwritten words. This princess is beautiful and independent minded—a force to be reckoned with.

Albert Ueligitone stars as Wilcox, bringing to life a fully realized character, with genuine emotion, charisma, and charm (and a really good mustache). A younger Ueligitone portrayed a younger Wilcox in O’Malley’s second play featuring the character, Island Skin Songs, when it premiered at KKT over a decade ago, which may explain why he knows this part inside and out. The passion of husband and wife—for one another and for their cause—ignites much of the tension.

The rest comes from the Wilcoxes’ interaction with other famous historical figures: Theodore and “Edie” Roosevelt; entertainer Bert Williams; and even anarchist Emma Goldman. Each historical character brings something important to the story.

O’Malley imagines Theodore and Edie, played by Tony Nickelsen and Jenn Thomas, as somewhat intimate acquaintances of the Wilcoxes. Nickelsen’s Roosevelt affects strength greater than he truly possesses and, though a good person at heart, is ultimately unable to stand up for his beliefs. Thomas commands—her husband and everyone watching—as the fan-wielding first wife. Their relationship provides a dramatic counterpoint to the Wilcoxes’.

Rikki Jo Hickey’s Emma Goldman is a chiding yet flirty “aunty” figure with a sharp Lithuanian tongue: “Don’t be their trained monkey,” she warns. Her reappearance late in the play has a surreal quality, as though Wilcox, high on his stomach tonic Peruna, has possibly dreamt her up in his time of need.

Actors Troy M. Apostol, Scott Robertson, and Jordan T. Savusa, each with two roles, provide remarkably authentic characters. Robertson’s Leon Czolgosz is flawlessly extreme. “I am a man of action too,” he says, in a show-stopping moment. Savusa’s Booker T. Washington exudes composure.

The relationship between performance and politics is a theme in Wilcox’s Shot—both politician and performer must play to the audience. Apostol’s Bert Williams—in a perspicaciously directed scene—makes the comparison shortly before the stage transitions to an out-of-time spotlight on the performer presenting the song “Nobody,” which speaks to the callousness of the era and the sad, solitary state of human existence.

Boxing is also used as a metaphor—sparring and shadow. The shadowboxing scenes deliver Wilcox’s frustration and are perfectly staged to complement his ineffectual petitions to congress. The sparring scenes between Wilcox and Roosevelt, brilliant in theory, fall flat in this staging. The realistic approach—two gloved men talking at one another with minimal movement—appears awkward and false.

Botbyl’s vision, as mentioned in his Director’s Note, of “sepia hues and faded newsprint” shows in the set, costume, and lighting designs, and the scenes end in a “freeze frame” evoking old photographs. Unfortunately, many of the scene changes take as long to manage as those old cameras probably took to change the film. Done in blackout, much inherent momentum dies in the dark. Lowlight would have kept the attention while also evoking the theme of history as something literally reconstructed.

Wilcox’s Shot will fascinate anyone with an interest in historical drama and the play should in no way be thought of as a nostalgic period piece. The complex relationship created between Wilcox and Roosevelt reveals the sticky entanglements of power, action, and popular opinion. The final scene is a subtle dance, a culmination of ideas on what it means to be a patriot, a leader, a friend, or maybe just a human being—someone striving to do something, to be effective, to take a shot.

[Kumu Kahua Theatre, 46 Merchant St., runs through Sun. 4/29, Thu.–Sat. 8pm; Sun., 2pm, $5-$20, [kumukahua.org], 536-4441]

A slightly modified version of this review originally appeared in the 4/18 issue of the Honolulu Weekly.

From Subtle Satire to In Your Farce — THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at HPU & THE INSPECTOR GENERAL at TAG

2012-04-19T13:43:00.002-10:00

Two theatres, two classics, two very different shows

From light and frothy to exaggerated buffoonery; from parasols to sock puppets; from character to caricature: Two classic comedies now playing on O‘ahu that share certain qualities—such as social criticism and mistaken identity—provide drastically dissimilar theatrical experiences.

Cucumber Cool

From the moment the houselights go down, when costumed servants enter in very low light to get things “set” just so for the afternoon tea while classical music plays, a tidy and sophisticated world comes in to being, replete with engraved silver cigarette cases and edible crustless cucumber sandwiches. The Importance of Being Earnest—Oscar Wilde’s most famous play—finds itself right at home in Hawaii Pacific University’s (HPU) Paul and Vi Loo Theatre.

The play sports a collection of clever and quirky characters each with perfectly preposterous ideas on how one should behave in society. Nearly every line contains irony and witty wordplay. The plot is a well-crafted web of improbable connections and relations, which I’ll leave for the reader to experience first-hand, so as to enjoy the experience that much more if you’ve never read or seen the play before. This production benefits from a strong cast, highly competent designers, and subtle direction. Director Joyce Maltby, who touts Earnest as “one of the best comedies ever written in the English language,” mostly gets out of the way, letting the text “direct” much of the action, a feat more difficult and commendable than it sounds.

The main attraction of Earnest is undoubtedly Mitchell Milan as Lady Bracknell. His mannerisms, speech cadences, and facial expressions comprise a character that will have you hanging on her every word and movement. As Maltby mentions in her program note, it’s becoming fairly common to cast a male in this role. I doubt many men could do it better than Milan.

That said, there are no weaknesses in this cast. The four frivolous main characters around whom the plot revolves are brought to life in amusing contrasts. Duncan Dalzell’s Algernon Moncrieff is the perfect rake to Richard Bragdon’s sincere and serious—though not quite innocent—John Worthing. Lacey Perrine Chu’s silly and impetuous Cecily Cardew is abundantly veracious alongside Sara Cate Langham’s superb portrayal of the exceedingly cultivated Gwendolen Fairfax, a relationship that epitomizes the differences (and similarities) between country and city upbringings.

The story of trivial misidentifications that is Earnest clips along at a steady pace, slowing only for the eccentricities of Lady Bracknell. The audience has the tantalizing task of keeping up with the many quips and following the satirical story to its anticipated end. While there is nothing really groundbreaking about this production, each element is crafted with attention and care, providing a delightful evening of theatre.

Caricature Cacophony

What do sock puppets, a squeaky rubber hunk of meat, and a plethora of “idiots” have in common? Each appears in The Actors’ Group’s (TAG) current production of The Inspector General, an adaptation of the Nikolai Gogol play. Oisin O’Sullivan, who adapted the play from the Russian classic, has a nonchalant attitude about his success: “If you think the play is funny, OK, it’s funny. If you think the play stinks, OK, it stinks,” he ventures in his program note. A production like this—audacious and unabashed—will probably score 50/50 in the funny/stinks ratio of popular opinion.

Those who arrive without expectations will likely enjoy Inspector the most, mainly because this adaptation, rather than providing more sophisticated satire, delivers a bawdy, cartoonish farce. Director Enda O. Breadon writes in his program note, “People look like idiots when they try hard to be important, or even just to look important.” This show doesn’t try to be or look important. That doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t. Looks—as this play demonstrates through the inciting case of mistaken identity—can be deceiving.

The corrupt, Napoleonic Governor, notably played by Su Yates, is the major dupe, mistaking a virtual nobody for the “inspector general” due to arrive from the capital at any moment.

Everything about this production hinges on the topsy-turvy. The outrageous human characters and the simple sock puppets make each other look both plausible and ridiculous, especially when engaging in adroit conversation all in the “hands” of just one actor, namely Joshua Howard Behn, who simultaneously portrays Khlestakov, of the mistaken identity, and his valet Osip.

While some performances are a pleasure to watch—like the vivacious renditions of Marya (Ailia Hopkins) and her mother Anna (Michele Van Hessen)—others are painfully flat or dull. Again, the disparity accentuates in either direction, as is the case with the costume and set designs. Fabulously tailored, colorful clothing bursts out against a drab, uneventful set. But aren’t all these extremes working toward a particular representation of life? Contradictory, diverse, monotone and yet full of color.

Gogol’s Inspector General is a critique of human nature and social power structures. It makes sense to attack the audience’s sensibilities and expectations. TAG’s production, while very funny at moments and even quite clever conceptually, lacks somewhat in execution, with pacing being the greatest roadblock. There’s an “inner thought” spot that functions as a recurring speed bump, preventing the show from really taking off. The audience manages to get ahead of the jokes, winding up safely out of reach, neither amused nor abused. The majority of rollicking fun comes in the second act, in scenes where the momentum is allowed to break free, such as a stylized dance seduction and a revolving-door parade of townspeople.

The HPU and TAG productions take alternative approaches to classic texts, engaging audiences in almost opposite fashion. Earnest takes you along on a familiar yet pleasurable ride with reverence for the text and a consistent, dry, satirical wit, while The Inspector treats the classic as a blueprint, creating something original and certainly cheeky—like a trip off the tracks on a runaway train.

[The Importance of Being Earnest, HPU’s Paul and Vi Loo Theatre, 45-045 Kamehameha Highway, Kaneohe, runs until May 6, Thu at 7:30pm, Fri & Sat at 8pm, Sun at 4pm, $5-$25, 375-1282, www.hpu.edu/theatre]

[The Inspector General, TAG - The Actors’ Group, Dole Cannery Square, 650 Iwilei Rd Suite 101, runs until April 29, Thu-Sat at 7:30pm, Sun at 2pm, $12-$20, 722-6941, www.taghawaii.net]

Audience Subversion—What's the Point? — TYKE DREAMS OF PLUMERIA STARS at LCC

2012-04-12T18:19:00.002-10:00

by Guest Contributor

Shawn Thomsen

After watching a theatrical performance, one generally expects to receive some positive or moral message. A story should involve a through-line or something that the audience is supposed to take with them. If you were to ask me what I thought about Leeward Community College’s (LCC) student theatre lab production of Tyke Dreams of Plumeria Stars, I would tell you, “What’s the point?” After all, this is one of the most reoccurring phrases within the show.

Tyke Dreams of Plumeria Stars is one of those “show within a show” kind of productions, yet what is different about this one is that it has a constant meta-referential element. The story is inspired by Tyke, a female circus elephant who in 1994 killed her trainer, gored her groomer, and horrified hundreds of spectators in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. The other influence is from Shakespeare’s Othello, which I assume somehow inspires the other half of the title, “Plumeria Stars.” The setting is an occupy camp somewhere in Honolulu and the time is the present. What I enjoy most is that the story is told through scenes that are represented as dreams filled with imagery that is almost warrior and tribal-like. Some scenes are presented as memory, which are also stylized but get ruined by Death (a character) and the fake stage manager.

Within this show there are four main characters: Sister, Brother, Lover, and Bound Man. The entire ensemble, except for three—Death, the stage manager, and the real stage manager—take turns playing the different main characters. Did it matter whether or not the audience would get confused as to who was playing whom? No. The ensemble was able to convey the characteristics of each main character. The transitioning flowed effortlessly from scene to scene and from character to character. What really helped was the simple costuming each of the main characters had and which the actors exchanged throughout the play. The character of the Sister wore a red coat, the Brother wore a red cap, the lover a red scarf, and the Bound Man wore a red sheet.

Each of the scenes deal with some form of oppression, restraint, or a never-ending downward spiral of shit, and it seems that these characters will never be able to pull themselves out of it. You know the saying, “Shit happens”? Well, in this story, it happens a lot; the question is how long is it going to take to wash all that shit off? And to add to the pile of shit already made, the actors are constantly interrupted by Death, who in this case is a female and arrives late to the show because she had to wait for her son’s babysitter to show up. Death’s interruptions cause the actors to become frustrated, stop their story telling, have negative reactions, and spout endless profanity. Death interjects statements like, “Is this going to take long? My babysitter would like to know what time she can expect me to be home.” Another character who interrupts and from the beginning possesses the negative outlook of “I hate these actors!” was the fake stage manager, telling the audience, “This show sucks! I don’t even know why you want to watch this show anyway?” Audience subversion and negativity strikes.

The current instructor for the LCC student lab theatre production class and playwright of Cane Fields Burning, which world premiered as KKT’s season opener of 2011-2012, Kemuel DeMoville, mentions in the program notes, “One of the main themes we were working with was subversion. We try to subvert everything we do in this play: genre conventions, narrative, emotional connection, character, etc…” Which begs the question: If everything is subverted, what exactly is an audience paying to watch? So I ask again, “What’s the point?”

To be honest, I had to revisit the definition of subvert. To my understanding it means “to take away.” According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online, subvert means, “ruin or corrupt by an undermining of morals, allegiance, or faith.” Okay, if everything in the play has been subverted, then the only thing left is to subvert is the audience. Do I feel, as an audience member, subverted or (by Merriam-Webster’s definition) ruined?

With all the condescending connotations, yelling arguments, and profanity in this particular show, I guess you can say, as an audience member I was subverted. I didn’t leave with the positive energy I had before watching the show. Instead, I felt I had absorbed the ensemble’s negative energy of frustration and irritation towards Death and the stage manager. This left me wondering: Was it the intention of the production to have audience members leave with such an uneasy feeling? Was there a moral understanding the audience was meant to receive or was this particular production only meant to cause a reaction? What? What was the point?

The audience is tasked to actively piece together the show with hints towards the plot within the episodic thematic expressions portrayed. Really? You are going to make me work to figure out what is going on? It was bad enough in the pre-show being asked to sign a petition called P.E.T.A—and no, not the animal rights activist group that we know—this P.E.T.A stood for People for the Ethical Treatment of Actors. I enjoy shows that involve audience interactions and, being an actor and improviser myself, I love to take part in any interaction. When one of the ensemble members (female) asked me to sign the petition, I asked for the nature and cause (and this is why I say “bad enough”) and the ensemble member told me nonchalantly, “We just need your signature.” Seriously? I thought to myself, You want me to just put my signature on something, some “cause” that supports the ethical treatment of actors and you can’t give me an idea of what kind of issues are concerning the matter? Do you even believe in this “cause”? Why are you even here? What’s the point? How about you fill me in on the issues and maybe I will consider signing this petition. So naturally, I responded to her with, “No, that’s okay, I hate actors.” She was speechless and walked away. Moments later, another member of the ensemble (male) came to thank other audience members for supporting their rally. When he came to thank me, I told the actor, “Don’t, I didn’t sign the petition.” When he asked me why, I told him what I told the other the ensemble member, “I hate actors.” This ensemble member was offended. As he emotionally expressed the nature of the petition, I simply told him, “Prove it! Prove to me in this performance that this is really an issue.” The actor seemed to have taken great offense from my statement and ran off “crying” in a campy sort of way. Already, the negative energy began to fester.

DeMoville also mentions that they were more concerned with thematic expressions rather than creating a typical narrative drama or comedy. The thematic expressions performed in the show resembled the whole hippy peace, love, and war movement during the 1960’s. Some of the thematic expressions were performed in sort of a dreamscape atmosphere or as DeMoville describes it “fragmented dreams or nightmare.” Infused with a rhythmic “stomp” style of percussion from pounding on boxes, stomping the ground with their feet, entrancing vocals, and choreography to match, the directors and ensemble delivered the performance brilliantly, sending out emotional messages and establishing an immediate connection with the audience. I even joined in, adding an extra beat as the ensemble was performing (as far I knew the ensemble couldn’t tell) but the connection was cut short or interrupted by an outside element.

In regards to plot, although the idea of subversion is in place, the plot is delivered through scenes, much like the dreamscapes, but more in a style of a memory. The “Dinner” scene, as listed in the program, was one of the most powerful of scenes. It revealed more as to how these four characters came to exist in a world filled with negativity. What I mean by negativity is that many of the relationships between the characters had no sense of empathy or even sympathy for one another. The characters acknowledge that something has happened but neglect to deal with the issue, much like the elephant in the room. The elephant, which I assume is inspired by Tyke, who was neglected, which caused havoc on the streets, destruction, the loss of a human life, and the death of Tyke herself.

Because the ensemble builds upon negative scenarios, dispensing negative remarks, and releasing negative energies to each other and the audience, it’s hard for a message of hope to be received. It’s like being in a pitch-black tunnel. You hope to see some sliver of light somewhere, anywhere, or something to be reflective in the dark. Totally blinded by darkness, if you also have a negative mindset, there is no way of seeing the light, but if you are positive in mindset, the light will appear sometime soon. Negative actions, such as taking out frustrations wildly and exploding without consideration, can cause others to be affected in a negative way. When we react calmly and show support positively, like, “let’s get through this,” instead of, “fuck just finish it already!”we spread hope. This show doesn’t allow the audience to receive any positive messages because our minds are responding to the negative energy and so we end up with the same attitude as the ensemble: “Yeah, just finish it already!”

So what’s the point? As I mentioned earlier, before I watched this production I was filled with positivity. From the moment of my first interaction and through the course of the play, I absorbed and became filled with negative energy. I felt frustrated and irritated yet there was no one to be frustrated or irritated at. It took me a few hours of psychological repairing to bring me back to the level of positivity I had before the show. Then I thought to myself, “Maybe that was the point: perseverance.” The characters of the story had gone through so much loss and trauma and couldn’t grow past the incident. The actors, while performing their show for Death, were not being respected as artists by Death with her constant interruptions. The actors retaliation against Death, with such direct aggression, spewed over within the ensemble and they began to spread the negativity amongst themselves, talking over each other, changing the story, arguing and stopping the show the actual audience wanted to see. The ensemble, however, still managed to finish their performance. I guess that was a kind of persevering.

[Leeward Community College Lab Theatre, runs till 4/14, Thu-Sat 8pm. $10]

Innocence Interrupted — SPRING AWAKENING at Manoa Valley Theatre

2012-04-05T08:37:00.000-10:00

A little teenage angst—what’s the worst that can happen? In the case of Spring Awakening, the worst is bad, and it all happens. A rebellious rock musical set in a provincial nineteenth-century German town, this is a story of a clash between the generations: the old, stifling, order and their offspring: repressed children bursting and thirsting. The crux is knowledge versus shame, innocence versus experience. The result: the Manoa Valley Theatre (MVT) production of Spring Awakening—in the care of Director Paul T. Mitri—is a profound experience, highly sensual and intellectual.

Levin and Ho'okano [courtesy of MVT]

The “awakening” begins with Wendla, a sheltered adolescent played with near-paroxysmal nervous energy by Elise Levin. Singing the opening musical number, “Mama Who Bore Me,” she faces the audience and explores her own physical landscape. Levin, like most of the cast, has a powerful voice. The ethereal music played by the band just above her and the dreamlike atmosphere of the scene help to create a seductive initial moment, eventually interrupted by the entrance of Wendla’s mother.

The role of the adult men and women—all played by Craig Howes and Liz Stone—is to interrupt, check, and disturb the youth. Which in turn inspires them to rebel, explore, implode.

Based on a play of the same name, filled with abuse and death, the musical, through songs, dance, and the production’s elemental synergy, achieves a disquieting beauty. The scenes—short and potent—represent the external, while the musical numbers express the young characters’ internal conflicts and desires. The musical direction of Kenji Higashihama is outstanding.

The movement, choreographed by Cindy Hartigan, is both stylized and organic feeling—even orgiastic, at times—with synchronized rock-star dance moves here and a throbbing mass of touching bodies there. The set is also used to reflect internal revelations, starting off whitewashed and becoming a canvas, literally painted on during many of the songs.

The performances bear the mark of Mitri’s direction—he has a gift for empowering actors to make something out of every word and thought. Often, multiple things happen at once. While the action unfolds on stage, the rest of the cast hover in the “rafters” above watching, heightening the sense of impending drama, until the music starts again.

Jonah Ho‘okano, who plays the intellectual dissident Melchior, has that rare stellar combination: the voice, the presence, and the moves. In his moment alone on stage at the end of the penultimate number—“Those You’ve Known”—Ho‘okano delivers a breathtaking emotional climax.

Other noteworthy performances: Leiney Rigg as Ilse manages without much stage time to portray an unforgettable “lost girl”; Garett Taketa’s Moritz has a constant burning intensity; and Joel Libed as Hanschen provides some of the most shocking humor.

By the final number, you won’t want it to end. It’s an experience like no other. Spring Awakening, let’s just say, is not your average musical. The MVT production of Spring Awakening raises the bar for musical theatre in Hawai‘i.

An edited version of this review was originally published in the March 21 issue of The Honolulu Weekly.

When Vaginas Unite — THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES by V-Day Honolulu 2012

2012-04-04T09:07:00.000-10:00

Vagina. Say it out loud, right now, so anyone can hear. Not embarrassed are you? If so, then you must have missed the V-Day Honolulu 2012 production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. Otherwise, all you’d want to do is talk about Vagina—a word that sounds like a disease at best, one performer says. They laugh. I laugh. It’s true.

The Vagina Monologues—synonymous with ending violence against women and girls—ranks among one of the most popular plays of our time, and for good reason if this production is any indication. The show—which ran for two nights at Marks Garage, with over twenty performers and six directors—made me cherish my vagina more than ever.

The juxtaposition of lighter- and darker-themed monologues kept the evening from becoming overly depressing—because let’s face it, most people don’t want to be confronted with rape and female genital mutilation—while the different directing styles provided variety.

Lola Love directed two of the most engaging monologues of the evening. Ríel Uyehara performed “The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could,” a series of memories relating one woman’s troubled childhood and the trauma she and her vagina suffered. One of the longer pieces, Uyehara carried me through the pain, the humor, and the wonder of healing with the soulful innocence of her recital.

Bridget Gray reclaimed the four-letter C-word like it’s what she was born to do. Her performance emanated in waves, from her center to her tongue, and every other nerve in her body. I can’t even use that word here because it’s not allowed in print, though I’m now convinced it should be. A performance like this isn’t mere entertainment—it’s inciting.

Some of the monologues were performed by more than one woman—a choice that tended to distract rather than enhance the material, except in the case of “My Vagina Was My Village,” where the two voices represented the break a person suffers after being sexually abused.

Watching these performers—for the most part—felt like being addressed by real women. Only a few times did I think, she’s trying too hard. Perhaps that’s why this production was so affecting. The line between performer and character often dissolved, which is not to say the acting was flawless, but rather that the actors were more concerned with being honest than flawless. Honesty is potent—strong enough to change the way people think and feel, about words, about women and especially about vaginas.

[For more information about V-Day, go to www.vday.org]

Moving Movement — DUSK AND DAYBREAK at UHM

2012-02-24T00:26:00.001-10:00

by Guest Contributor

Becky McGarvey

This year’s Winter Footholds dance show at UH Mānoa, Dusk and Daybreak, is consistent in the Footholds tradition of collecting a wide range of different types of dances and themes and shaping them into one interesting dance concert. This year’s audience has the pleasure of voyaging to Japan and India (to name a few) and also through some out-of-the-ordinary places existing somewhere in each individual choreographer’s psyche.

One such piece is choreographer Antonia Brown’s “Red-Handed.” This captivating duet features a young dancer, Alison Burkhardt, with one arm completely covered in red paint up to her elbow. Not only is this a striking image against the black box Earle Ernst Lab Theatre and the dancers’ simple black costumes, but it becomes even more outstanding as Burkhardt touches her partner, Mercedes Johnson, and paints parts of her neck, arms, and back red. Beautiful quality of dancing aside, the final image of Johnson drawing Burkhardt’s red hand across her stomach and leaving a bright red gash is uncomfortably stirring, in a very good way.

The evening also includes some interesting pieces that portray very thoughtful themes and set designs. Mayu Ota and Cher Anabo, in fulfillment of their MFA degrees, use projected images as the backdrop of their dances, as well as props and specific costume design.

Ota’s “Beyond Time” depicts a woman looking at Japanese paintings in a museum and expressing the beauty and struggles of her ancestors, and Anabo’s “Salpukan: Moving Bodies, Moving Meanings” is an abstract presentation on human trafficking, including a score comprised of several people speaking on various parts of the subject. The piece is very well conceptualized: images of human trafficking projected onto the stage, the dancers all wearing girdles, and the white flowing fabric they use as a prop and a set piece give the simple stage depth as these elements shield the audience from seeing what goes on behind closed windows.

Although many of the dances have rather dark or meditative qualities to them, there are some lighter moments, such as the fusion of dance and magic tricks in Kent Shinomae’s “Just an Illusion” and BFA candidate Keely Urbanich’s senior thesis “Helicopters and Tea,” which is a very brightly colored piece that I can only assume is about helicopters…and tea.

Rohini Acharya’s “The Dance of Sound” is a well-crafted piece that uses traditional Indian dance, Bharata Natyam, to make a colorful rhythmic dance. The dancers uses the basic exercises of Bharata Natyam to create rhythms with the stomping of their feet while the choreographer plays a percussion instrument on the stage and counts aloud in Hindi.

Between the thoughtful and moving pieces and the fun and interesting pieces are BFA Candidate Cassandra Glaser’s “Family Ties,” which includes some very beautiful aerial dance work, and Sami Akuna’s experimental “15 Seconds to Repeat,” a simple, almost post-modern dance that uses the repetition of everyday movement, such as eating and talking on the phone.

The evening ends with Angie Haugejorden’s “Tranquil Purification,” in which a trio of dancers interacts with a bowl of lighted water. Whether these women are washing their face after a particularly scary nightmare or partaking in some holy worship, the dancers perform with such beautiful commitment to the movement that one can enjoy the dance without worrying about what it means.

I recommend a Winter or Spring Footholds to anyone wanting to see just how many creative ways there are to express ideas with movement. Regardless of whether you “get” the various dances or not, you will not be bored. All the pieces are premieres of student work, guaranteeing you will see something that no one else on the island has seen before and, if you keep an open mind, you might really like some of it.

Tickets and Showtimes

Feb. 22, Feb. 23, Feb. 24, Feb. 25 at 8 PM.
Feb. 26 at 2 PM.

General Admission: $15.00
Seniors, Military, UH Faculty/Staff: $14.00
Students: $12.00
UHM Students: $5.00

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Lit Out Loud: M.I.A. at Fresh Cafe

2012-02-20T12:33:00.001-10:00

Since October of 2009, all manner of creative “writers” have been taking the stage once a month to share their work, whether it be poetry, fiction, essay, music, song, or some other type of performance. This is NOT an open stage. The talent is booked in advance. In other words, M.I.A. focuses on quality, not quantity, with 4 or 5 performers per event.

M.I.A.—which stands for Mixed Innovative Arts—is usually held every third Monday of the month in the Loft at Fresh Café. As the series has grown—from a seed in the mind of then-newly-arrived-to-the-island UHM English department PhD candidate Jaimie Gusman—to the popular place-to-be that it is now, it’s been exciting to see all the community support. This isn’t some rinky-dink, tortured artist clubhouse. You don’t have to wear black and smoke cigarettes to attend—it’s not the 90s and this isn’t, oh I don’t know, Seattle… (Oops, isn’t that where Gusman moved here from?) Anyway, my point is that M.I.A. is for everyone.

What keeps the series so fresh (besides the location)? Collaboration! So far, M.I.A. has teamed up with Bamboo Ridge, Tinfish Press, `Ōiwi, Honolulu Weekly, and, coming this April, Hawai`i Review.

When asked about the future, Gusman said, “I see M.I.A. growing even more so that it can host more writing and art workshops, not just in the summer, but year-round. I also want to collaborate with other non-profits, artists groups, and publishers so that we can further support local writers and artists.”

In the meantime, M.I.A. is putting together an anthology of works featuring past readers/performers. I submitted a story (as I am proud to be among those honored with a spot on the lineup). Fingers crossed on making the final cut…

This month’s evening features Scott Abels, Kelsey Amos, Donovan Kūhiō Colleps, and Caroline Sinavaiana. For more info, visit the event’sFacebook page or the M.I.A website.

If you are interested in performing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual arts, or music at M.I.A. email miaseries@gmail.com.